FAA Launches Human Spaceflight Rulemaking Committee

Today (July 27), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) launched a 25-member rulemaking committee composed of government and industry officials to examine the development and cost of safety regulations to protect occupants on commercial human spaceflights.

“The committee is expected to gather recommendations from industry and other stakeholders to help the FAA plan, conceive, and implement — when the time is right — a well-informed, thoughtful, regulatory regime for commercial human spaceflight occupant safety. Recommendations will be submitted to the FAA next summer,” the agency said in a press release on Thursday.

The FAA’s new rulemaking committee is co-chaired by Minh A. Nguyen, executive director of the FAA’s Office of Strategic Management, and Mary Lynne Dittmar, chief government and external relations officer at private space station builder Axiom Space. It also contains representatives from other major commercial spaceflight companies. (See membership list below.)

The FAA announced the committee two months before a moratorium on regulations, also known as the learning period, is set to expire on October 1. Congress imposed the moratorium in 2004 to allow the industry to experiment with different spacecraft designs and gain operational experience before the FAA began formulating safety regulations.

The learning period was originally scheduled to lapse in 2012. Congress extended it twice to 2023 due to the slow progress of commercial spaceflight providers.

Customers of SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic currently fly under an informed consent regime in which the companies must disclose the risks involved in orbital or suborbital flights. State laws in Florida, New Mexico, and Texas – where flights originate – generally limit lawsuits for injuries and deaths to instances of gross negligence or intentional harm, though the FAA could have begun formulating regulations during the moratorium in the event of a serious accident, death, or close call.

Sirisha Bandla, Virgin Galactic’s vice president of government affairs and research operations, is on the committee. The company conducted its first commercial mission on June 29.

Rival Blue Origin is represented by Maggie McNeece, who handles government relations for the suborbital flight provider. The company has conducted six flights of its New Shepard suborbital vehicle with people on board.

SpaceX, which flies government and private astronauts into orbit, is represented by Vice President of Build and Flight Reliability Bill Gerstenmaier, who formerly oversaw human spaceflight at NASA. Boeing, which is developing the Starliner spacecraft for orbital flights, appointed Director of NASA Programs Bill Beckman to serve on the committee.

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF), which had been arguing for another extension of the learning period to allow companies to gain more experience, is represented by CSF’s Director of Regulatory Affairs, Isaiah Wonnenberg.

The FAA also announced that it was updating its recommended practices for commercial human spaceflight occupant safety. The agency said it is working with various organizations to develop voluntary consensus standards.

Human Space Flight Occupant Safety Aerospace Rulemaking
Committee Membership List

Editor’s Note (7/27/2023): This article was further edited after publication to remove editorialization.